Space rippled—and a figure stepped out.
Saitama.
He glanced around the Asgardian palace, curious. Truth be told, it was his first time inside the fabled halls of the Aesir. Marble columns climbed skyward, frescoes radiated solemn divinity—
and everywhere, the wreckage Hela had left behind cooled the grandeur into a bleak, broken hush.
"You dare come here?"
From the throne, Hela gazed down with a thin, icy smile. An immense power flowed out of Asgard itself and into her body, rapidly refilling what she'd spent.
"Why wouldn't I?" Saitama asked, puzzled.
"Good. Hahahaha—then I'll oblige you!"
Her laugh snapped; a bouquet of ebon spikes coalesced—then shrieked through the air. They were several times faster than before.
Rumble—
They caught Saitama with a glancing blast. Hela flashed in, a hand snatching for the airborne bald man. She didn't expect her spikes to kill this monster; she'd have to do it herself.
She shot in close—and her pupils tightened. She crossed her arms on instinct.
Bang.
Normal Punch.
A red fist cut the air, no flourish, smashing straight into her guard.
Crack, crack—teeth-gritting fractures rang out. Hela's arm-guards burst. Blood splattered. With a grunt, she flew backward even faster than she'd come.
The palace—throne and all—exploded under her impact. The floor heaved.
Like a plow, Hela carved a trench a hundred meters long and ten meters deep through the golden halls.
At the far end, she dropped to a knee, clutching her chest. Her breastplate was crushed inward at grotesque angles; both arms were visibly twisted, slick with blood.
"How… how can one punch hit that hard?!"
Terror prickled her scalp. If not for Asgard's domain surging through her, that blow might have crippled her outright.
"Eh?"
Saitama tilted his head, a rare spark of excitement flickering in his dead-fish eyes.
"You actually blocked one of my punches? Then let's have a real, all-out fight!"
Hela, a Heavenly-Father-tier deity now, had withstood a straight punch—enough to stir the salted king's fighting spirit.
"Today, you die here," Hela hissed. The Asgardian aether flooded her. Before his eyes, wounds knit shut; in a blink, she was whole again.
On Asgard, Hela was invincible.
Odin himself had spoken those words.
She never finished the thought—Saitama was suddenly in her face.
Normal Punch.
His fist landed.
Just as Hela kindled her battle ardor, she was swatted from the air like a sandbag. The realm trembled; palaces collapsed in roaring avalanches.
Asgard was nearly empty now. The resisting warriors were long since slain; the civilians Heimdall had hidden remained scattered at the outskirts. Here, at least, the fighting wouldn't sweep them up.
"Damn you!"
Hela bit back a scream. Even here, Saitama's speed was monstrous—no warning, no rhythm, just hit and hit and hit. Her freshly healed arms fractured again. A hiss of pain slid through her teeth.
"One-Handed Consecutive Normal Punches."
The nightmare words whispered at her ear.
A storm of red fists poured from the sky.
"No—die! I'll kill you!!"
Hela shrieked, vomiting blades in a heedless flood. Under that one-handed tempest they shattered to powder and vanished.
Punch-winds hammered her in waves. Armor re-broke. Bones snapped. Blood sprayed.
The entire palace shuddered—and then, under that tyrannical gale, crumbled to dust.
Hela hit distant ruins like a discarded sack. Half her body had been pulped—too grisly to look at.
"I… cannot… I am Hela, Goddess of Death! I will not fall!"
She roared. The broken shell stitched itself, her regeneration rivaling even pre-evolution Boros.
All Asgard shook. Ground split, yawning chasms exposed glowing seams of magma below.
Spearpoints like mountains thrust up from the earth, surging toward Saitama. Midair, they disassembled into a raging tide, a deluge of thrusts that seemed unstoppable.
Saitama stood his ground, smoke curling from his fists.
"You're pretty strong. Guess I should take this a bit seriously."
He muttered—
Two-Handed Consecutive Normal Punches.
Wilder than before, fist-shadows layered into a red firmament before him, grinding the oncoming thrust-tide to glittering dust.
Hela's lances were mighty. Against Saitama… they did nothing.
Rrrrrumble—
Fighting to the last, Hela could only stare as the storm obliterated everything she hurled—her face slowly slackening in disbelief.
Punch-winds smothered the realm.
Rumble—!
All Asgard writhed. The fallen palace, under that two-handed barrage, turned to powder. Hela's screams vanished beneath the roar.
When the air finally cleared, a crater tens of kilometers wide yawned where the palace had been. The heart of Asgard had become a vast depression.
Far off, scattered survivors gaped up from the outskirts.
"G-gods… am I dreaming?"
"What happened? This is impossible!"
"Is it the end of the world?"
Without Odin, Asgard had lost his sheltering power. The energy bulwarks that once sheathed the palace no longer stood. Even if Hela could siphon the realm to heal, after Saitama flattened half of Asgard, a deep helplessness and despair welled in her.
The Goddess of Death lay in pieces on the ground, her regeneration lagging at last.
Saitama walked over, looming over her as she reformed into something vaguely human.
"Heh… heh-heh… I never… imagined… that I would lose to you…"
Her bones and muscles crawled back into place. Those "Consecutive Normal Punches" had almost turned her to paste. Now, barely coherent, she looked wretched.
"You're strong," Saitama said mildly.
Back in his first world, he might have needed a Serious Punch to level her. Her power was near pre-evolution Boros—maybe greater. Perhaps their ceilings weren't so far apart.
But unfortunately for her, she'd met Saitama—a guy whose stray blows tended to flatten cities if he wasn't careful.
Asgard simply couldn't withstand him. Hela's power fell with the realm.
"Don't think I've lost! I am Hela—the true queen of Asgard! Kill!"
Wild-eyed, she hurled a forest of blades—not at Saitama, but at Asgard itself.
Boom—!
The land split. Asgard began to come apart. Endless magma roared up from the world's wounds—
and deep below, a terrifying presence woke and swelled.
(End of Chapter)
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